Clear text on a TV

[uberman]

Is there any way to improve the text on a TV monitor. I'm trying to output my jukebox program to my 27" television. When using the jukebox the text is too blurry to be functional. I'm using a resolution of 640X480 and still it is blurry. Any suggestions would be appreciated.  

[BobA]

You didnt say how you are currently outputing your video.  If you are using composite then switch to svideo if available.    You can also increase the size of the text that is fuzzy to make it more readable.   Some video cards do a better job then others and some tvs are better then others.  You may have to change something to get an acceptable display.

BobA

[RandyT]

Something to keep in mind is that the dot pitch of the CRT will eventually dictate the size of the smallest text that can be displayed.  An S-video capable set boasting "800 lines" will be much better in this regard than a bottom of the line composite set.

Also, most TV's (and possibly some arcade monitors) will have better focus at the center of the screen, which means small text that is readable in the center might not be at the corners.

Experimenting with foreground/background color combinations might help too.  For some reason, using certain colors can make a difference (like white on a dark gray or black on light gray).

Good luck,

RandyT

[uberman]

It's connected to the TV through composite. I will try s-video. Thanks for the help. I think this will be my last hurdle to get this jukebox functional.

[meta87]

You could also try the program called tv-tool.
Really improved the output to my television.

http://tvtool.info/index_e.htm

[HeadRusch]

Why some colors work better than others (reds are usually the worst) is that most tv sets emphasize red, its called "Red Push"...and there are ways to compensate for it, but not via SVideo....only component, or if you have your TV reprogrammed (most small tv's can't have this done).

Small TV's no matter how expensive they are, usually suffer from low-resolution tubes (forget 800 lines), geometry issues (speedbumps, skewing, pincushion) and lousy color convergence.

Not much you can do it about it.....my $150 Daewoo flatscreen TV is nice, but even with SVideo its got what I'd call a "marginal at best" picture for text.  Games look great....but focus, sharpness, color bleeding is all awful

Why? $150 bucks and tube size...